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Story:A Toast to Home and Duty
“And so here we are…” Earlier in the day, the relocation crew was tasked with offloading over half a decade of family life from the transport cruiser and dumping the crates more or less in order throughout the Embassy apartment. They didn’t really ‘dump’ their chartered cargo, per say, quite the opposite, in fact, considering how courteously the workers conducted themselves and took care to arrange boxes per my ever-changing request… ''Ambrosia muses to herself, staring numbly at the scene before her in what would be a living space. Presently, it resembles a crude cityscape, built of giant, toy blocks. ''Just feels like a dump job, this whole process. ''Turning her back on it all, she lets her feet guide her where they will, moving soundlessly, expressionlessly…like a ghost. Immediately upon arrival, she’d set to work unpacking Gabi’s belongings and renovating the girl’s room. A painter, previously arranged for, had met her precisely on time and between the two of them, the basic decorating was complete by early evening. The rest of the design was up to Gabi, a process that Ambrosia had warned her may be slow-going, pending her mother’s work schedule. But the little girl had big plans, and expeditiously labored to bring the ideas in her head to life on her sketch board before, during, and after supper. By just an hour past sundown, the child fell asleep on her bedroom floor. Fearing if woken she’d not return to sleep, Ambrosia left her clothed in her daywear and simply laid her in bed. She’d been there over two hours now, soundly sleeping, which the security camera Amber routed to her personal datapad confirmed. Many times. Finding herself now in her own sleeping quarters, the Ambassador steps silently to the door adjoining their rooms and slides it open just a hair. She presses one brow to the crack, peeping in to witness Gabi’s slumber. The child lay on her back, one arm thrown over her head and mouth limply ajar. The statuesque pose of defiance brings an unbidden but strangely welcomed chuckle to Ambrosia’s throat. “Spitting image of your father, you are,” she whispers, eyes filling with tears blended by sadness and mirth. The door slides shut, leaving her alone to find solace in something else. “And so here we are…” The woman sighs for a second time, sitting slowly, stiffly at her desk. Bothered by the amplified hum in her brain that the surrounding silence propagates, she reaches into her right ear and fingers a tiny device, causing a little ‘beep’ of warning to sound, and then...better silence. Less static from the outside world, but…still the hyperactive thought processes screaming within. But those demons, too, can be quieted. Opening a small chest atop her desk, she removes a sparkling blue, spherical bottle from its shallows and touches it to the thin stream of moonlight filtering through the window. Illuminated, it reveals a date – 10 years it’d been since Tivadar purchased the specially ‘refined’ blend of booze while away on business. It had been a splurge, tucked away for special occasion after their recently born infant was done breast feeding. And there it remained, forgotten while one celebratory event went by, then another…until he himself was lost. ''But not so forgotten. Setting it down, she folds her hands decisively in her lap, staring at it as one would a holo chess opponent. Solemn, game-faced. As logic would dictate, it doesn’t make the first move. The bottle wins the staring contest, and she abruptly stands, hands pressed into her temples, and turns away to examine …anything else. A few seconds later, she’s digging into a small box piled amongst her office items. Her rummaging grows more frantic by the second, and when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for by the count of ten, she flips it over, dumping the contents onto the floor. Chest heaving with emotion too-long untapped, she sniffs back the tears burning her eyes and rakes the tangled pile with her fingers, combing. A handful of business cards flutter into the shadows. Ambrosia drops to her knees and scrambles to retrieve them. Squinting, sniffing again, she lifts them to the light, squinting. “Scav…Scaven Marx.” A strangled sort of laugh, muffled by the back of her hand sputters into the silent night. Reaching above and behind her head, she punches a code into a desk drawer and it opens. Scaven’s ‘card’ gets tossed inside. Several more names are read from the pile, including “Ernest Pallando”, “Eva Sargent”, “Dean Corso”, “Peshk Vry’lya”, “Chief of State” and some data chits labeled “Pantek”. All are shoved into the drawer and it’s locked swiftly up. Breathing a shaky sigh, Ambrosia slumps against the desk’s leg and rubs at her eyes with a sleeve. Her other hand continues fishing, fingers creep-crawling until they graze across something glossy and cool. She lowers her arm from her face and stares at the object cradled in her palm. A chrome, spherical mini projector. “Found you,” she whispers tenderly and collects it in both hands while climbing to her feet. Sliding into her chair, she plunks the projector down alongside the liquor bottle. Her thumb probes the surface till it hits its mark and a tiny blue light blinks beneath it. Fractions of a second later, a hazy image illuminates the desktop. A pair of teasing eyes shine out at her, from beneath tousled hair and above that mischievous smile. Pressed into his cheek is that of a slumbering infant's. He holds her there, posing with that grin, as if to say… ''Look what we did, ''Ambrosia mouths quietly. “And so here we are,” the mantra repeats a third, final time. Eyeing the bottle of well-aged temptation, Ambrosia finally concedes and wrestles with the sealed cap. *POP* A potent yet palatable whiff of contents immediately invades her personal space. She gestures the bottle towards the holographic effigy and slumps back into her seat. “At long last, let us have a taste. A toast to home…and duty.” When a third of the bottle has disappeared, so has Ambrosia’s appetite for it. And her motor skills. She finds that her exit from the desk, a simple step to the left, is blocked suddenly by the desk’s corner and the inescapable clutch of gravity. “Where did you find that accursed drink…” she grumbles, now staring up at the ceiling after her abrupt topple. “Too much work to do...mmmmmmf.” Fueled by groans of self-loathing and chastisement, the inebriated woman crawls up and onto her undressed bed. Her hands fumble to locate a pillow, but come up empty handed. Conceding defeat, she collapses face-down on the gel mattress. It begins to cool in response to her body’s heat, but she’s already asleep and unable to appreciate the small mercy of technology.